the center of the conference table.
He knew better than to go for the pretty boxes. They had always proven to be notoriously bad choices, which was a lesson he’d learned when he’d gotten stuck with a pink polka-dot sweater. When his turn came, he took a plain gift, small and rectangular.
When he opened it, he stopped and looked up, surprised to find it was a cigar box.
“What’s inside?” someone yelled out.
Not knowing what to expect, he opened it and gasped. Inside was row upon row of cigars with preprinted pink labels. Each one exclaimed, in large letters, IT’S A GIRL. His hand froze and his throat thickened, and he found he was unable to speak. This was it. The answer to his prayer. He’d asked God for a sign and He had given him one.
“The wife had a son,” Joel Perkins explained out loud, attempting to cover the awkward silence. “We chose not to know the sex of the baby beforehand, so to be prepared, I ordered cigar boxes for both a boy and a girl.”
Zach managed a grin and set the cigars on the tabletop. He resisted the temptation to look upward and silently thank God. Once his pulse returned to normal, he felt like he could walk on air.
As he headed home, Zach continued to reason with himself and rationalize his actions. He’d already decided not to tell Laurel he hadn’t returned the baby clothes. Nor was he comfortable sharing with her what he’d received in the white-elephant exchange. Both would hurt her. Rather than rub salt in her wounds, he decided to hide the cigars along with the baby clothes. That would be best all the way around, he reasoned to himself. If she did ask, he’d find a way to sidestep her questions.
He recalled with relief that she was staying after school today for parent-teacher meetings. If he could tuck them away in the nursery before she got home, Laurel would never find either the clothes or the cigars. She never went into that room. Not since Jonathan left.
As luck would have it, the commute home was worse than normal. Even the bus driver was becoming impatient with the unusually heavy traffic. As the bus came to a halt at every red light, Zach impatiently bounced his knee in irritation, waiting for the signal to change. Normally the ride home relaxed him. He would read or close his eyes and go with the flow. Not so this evening. He was on a mission to arrive before Laurel.
From the bus stop, he nearly raced the two blocks to the house. The garage door was shut, and he couldn’t even see if her car was there. Bounding up the porch steps and through the front door, he found Helen knitting in her favorite chair and Mrs. Miracle sitting next to her. Helen had a bundle of pink yarn at her side and was intently working her knitting needles.
“Is Laurel home?” he asked breathlessly.
“Not yet,” Helen said, looking at him quizzically. “My goodness, Zach, where’s the fire?”
“I’ll explain in a minute.” He dashed into the nursery and tucked the clothes and cigars into the bottom drawer of the dresser. Confident that his secret was secure, he quickly closed the drawer and exited.
With both items safely out of sight, he gave a huge sigh of relief and joined the ladies in the living room. He prayed he had pulled this off without Laurel ever knowing.
Mrs. Miracle, he noticed, paid avid attention to her knitting, wearing a rather amused smile, while Nana studied Zach, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“What was that all about?” Helen asked, setting her knitting aside.
“Long story,” Zach replied, unwilling to explain.
Helen’s face softened. “You got a special Christmas gift for Laurel, and you wanted to hide it before she got home. You’re so thoughtful, Zach. I’m glad she has you in her life.”
Zach pretended to ignore Helen’s compliment, which, with his guilt, didn’t feel like one.
“How did the white-elephant exchange go this afternoon?” Mrs. Miracle asked.
Zach snapped his head around toward the older woman. He didn’t recall mentioning anything about the gift exchange to her or to Helen.
Mrs. Miracle continued to nonchalantly tug away on her skein of yarn, awaiting his reply.
“It went fine,” he said, being as vague as possible.
“Oh yes, the gift exchange,” Helen said. “Laurel mentioned you were taking that funny-looking polka-dot sweater you got last Christmas.”
“I did.”
“What crazy gift did you get this time around?”
The direct question was difficult